Abstract:
Humanitarian crises across the world are the worst since World War II, and the situation is only going to get worse. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), almost 60 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced from their homes — that is approximately one in every 123 people on the planet (UNHCR 2016a). The problem is growing, as the number of those displaced is over 60 percent greater than the previous decade. As a result, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced the first ever World Humanitarian Summit to be held May 23-24, 2016. The world’s attention is focused on the Syrian refugee crisis, which has displaced 11 million people. But in doing
so, the global community has lost sight of an equally severe humanitarian and displacement crisis — the situation in Yemen. Yemen now has more people in need of aid than any other country in the world, according to the UNOCHA Global Humanitarian Overview 2016. An estimated 21.2 million people in Yemen — 82 percent of the population
— requires humanitarian aid, and this number is steadily growing (UNOCHA 2016a).

Abstract:
The Internet enables the free flow of information on an unprecedented scale but to an increasing extent the management of individuals’ fundamental rights, such as privacy and the mediation of free expression, is being left in the hands of private actors. The popularity of a few web platforms across the globe confers on the providers both great power and heavy responsibilities. Free-to-use web platforms are founded on the sale of user data, and the standard terms give providers rights to intrude on every aspect of a user’s online life, while giving users the Hobson’s choice of either agreeing to those terms or not using the platform (the illusion of consent). Meanwhile, the same companies are steadily assuming responsibility for monitoring and censoring harmful content, either as a self-regulatory response to prevent conflicts with national regulatory environments, or to address inaction by states, which bear primary duty for upholding human rights. There is an underlying tension for those companies between self-regulation, on the one hand, and being held accountable for rights violations by states, on the other hand. The incongruity of this position might explain the secrecy surrounding the human systems that companies have developed to monitor content (the illusion of automation). Psychological experiments and opaque algorithms for defining what search results or friends’ updates users see highlight the power of today’s providers over their publics (the illusion of neutrality). Solutions could include provision of paid alternatives, more sophisticated definition and handling of different types of data — public, private, ephemeral, lasting — and the cooperation of all stakeholders in arriving at realistic and robust processes for content moderation that comply with the rule of law.

Abstract:
In May 2014, the world of privacy regulation, data handling and the World Wide Web changed dramatically as a result of judgment C-131/12 in the CJEU. The so-called Google Spain decision confirmed that EU data protection legislation gives data subjects the right to request search engines to de-index webpages that appear in the search results on their names. The search engine is not obliged to agree to such requests — certain conditions have to be met and tests applied — but it is not free simply to ignore them. The decision drew on the 1995 DPD2
and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,
and is consistent with a general direction toward more aggressive
protection of privacy rights in Europe, as evidenced by the annulment of the Data Retention Directive, also in 2014 (CJEU 2014). Nevertheless, despite these antecedents, it has been seen as a major step in establishing a right to be forgotten.

Abstract:
The past 20 years have witnessed a profound change in the types of non-resident investors who provide funding to emerging market economies (EMEs) and the financial instruments through which emerging market (EM) corporations borrow from abroad. Until the beginning of the new millennium, private capital flows to EMEs were mainly intermediated by large global banks, and EMEs were subjected to massive volatility in their external payments balances, exchange rates and domestic financial systems. But since the early 2000s the role of bank-intermediated credit has declined, as the base of investors willing to take on exposure to EM corporate debt has become much larger and more diverse. These structural changes have encouraged a vast growth in flows of funds, not only from the mature economies to EMEs as a group, but also among EMEs themselves.

Abstract:
The effects of the termination of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) on the trade of clothing and textiles are assessed in this paper, based on world trade date and US trade data. The findings from the data analyzed indicate that the effects of the termination of the MFA on the clothing trade was more significant for clothing than for the textiles trade. With the end of the MFA, the freer trade in these sectors shed light on other sectors that are still protected under trade agreements.

Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Markets, Treaties and Agreements, Regulation

Abstract:
This paper analyzes the impact of four major financial sector sustainability codes of conduct, the UN Environmental Programme Finance Initiative, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, the Equator Principles and the Global Alliance for Banking on Values with regard to their impact on the sustainability of their members. The codes of conduct focus on the integration of environmental, social and governance criteria into financial decision making in lending, investment, asset management and project finance. corporate sustainability voluntary codes of conduct have a positive impact on their members. The effectiveness, however, depends on the quality and content of a code, as well as on implementation and compliance mechanisms.

Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, United Nations, Ethics

Abstract:
The past 20 years have witnessed a profound change in the types of non-resident investors who provide funding to emerging market economies (EMEs) and the nancial instruments through which emerging market (EM) corporations borrow from abroad. Until the beginning of the new millennium, private capital ows to EMEs were mainly intermediated by large global banks, and EMEs were subjected to massive volatility in their external payments balances, exchange rates and domestic nancial systems. But since the early 2000s the role of bank- intermediated credit has declined, as the base of investors willing to take on exposure to EM corporate debt has become much larger and more diverse. These structural changes have encouraged a vast growth in ows of funds, not only from the mature economies to EMEs as a group, but also among EMEs themselves.

Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance

Abstract:
Investor-state arbitration (ISA) has been a controversial topic and a source of criticism and debate for quite some time. Yet, it continues to be a standard feature of modern international investment agreements (IIAs). While opposition to ISA has traditionally come from certain sectors of civil society, there appears to be a growing discomfort now among states as well.
Some critics suggest that ISA is unnecessary and should be left out of IIAs altogether. Others argue that it may be needed in IIAs between developed nations that are mostly capital exporters, on the one hand, and developing countries that require foreign capital to promote development, on the other, but that it is unwarranted in IIAs that developed countries enter into among themselves. They reason that developed countries have robust legal frameworks and institutions, including responsive judiciaries, that adequately protect private investment and, therefore, ISA can safely be omitted from such IIAs without any detriment to foreign investors or their investments.
This paper addresses some of the aws in the arguments that have been advanced in support of this position, as well as some of its implications, especially the reaction that might be expected from developing countries if developed countries were to back away from ISA in their dealings with other developed nations but continue to demand its inclusion in their agreements with developing countries.

Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance

Abstract:
This paper reviews a range of issues associated with proposals for creditor engagement clauses (CECs) in sovereign bond contracts. CECs have moved onto the international policy agenda in the wake of the recent introduction of model “second-generation” collective action clauses (CACs) designed to address problems highlighted by the protracted litigation between Argentina and its holdout creditors.
Speci cally, the new CACs should limit the ability of holdout creditors to impede restructurings acceptable to a supermajority of creditors and address the problematic interpretation of pari passu language that has plagued the Argentina debt restructuring. However, the introduction of these clauses, building on the foundation laid a decade ago by Mexico’s innovation of rst-generation CACs, has led some observers to express concerns that the sovereign debt restructuring playing eld has become “tilted” to the bene t of sovereign borrowers. Recent contractual innovations should be balanced, these experts contend, with CECs requiring sovereign issuers to convene and negotiate with creditor committees.

Abstract:
In recent years, high-pro le lawsuits involving standards- essential patents (SEPs) have made headlines in the United States, Europe and Asia, leading to a heated public debate regarding the role and impact of patents covering key interoperability standards. Enforcement agencies around the world have investigated and prosecuted alleged violations of competition law and private licensing commitments in connection with SEPs. Yet, while the debate has focused broadly on standardization and patents in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, commentators have paid little attention to differences among technology layers within ICT.
A review of case statistics shows that patent ling and assertion activity is substantially lower for Internet- related standards than for standards relating to telecommunications and other computing technologies. This paper analyzes historical and social factors that may have contributed to this divergence, focusing on the two principal Internet standards bodies: the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It offers a counternarrative to the dominant account portraying standards and SEPs as necessarily fraught with litigation and thereby in need of radical systemic change. Instead, it shows how standards policies that de-emphasize patent monetization have led to lower levels of disputes and litigation. It concludes by placing recent discussions of patenting and standards within the broader context of openness in network technologies and urges both industry participants and policy makers to look to the success of Internet standardization in a patent-light environment when considering the adoption of future rules and policies.

Topic:
Science and Technology, International Security, Information Age

Abstract:
Economic con ict between nation-states has been a major concern throughout the past century and will continue to threaten progress for the foreseeable future. The language evolves, but the issues persist. The “beggar-thy-neighbour” policies and “competitive devaluations” that aggravated the Great Depression of the 1930s have become the “currency wars” of the twenty- rst century. De ning the problem, however, is easy compared with the task of solving it. A central recurring question is whether policy makers can — and should — cooperate and try to coordinate their policies in an effort to alleviate con icts and improve outcomes.

Topic:
International Cooperation, International Political Economy, International Development

Abstract:
I have rarely seen, in my long life, a change as unjustified as the one represented by the new investment tribunal structure now found in the agreed text of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union.
First of all, it is a poor solution based on a faulty premise. It is the result of an ill-informed but obviously effective campaign by mainly European lobbies[1] and some groups in the European Parliament, which have argued, without proper quantitative or qualitative support, that the present system is biased in favour of foreign investors. If this were the case, how can they explain that, according to the latest statistics from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), only 46 percent of all ICSID awards upheld (in part or in full) investors’ claims, while 53 percent of the claims were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction or on the merits, and another one percent were rejected as manifestly without legal merit.[2] Similarly, in its 2014 World Investment Report, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) came to the conclusion that, out of 274 concluded investment treaty cases in 2013, 43 percent were decided in favour of the state, 31 percent in favour of the investor and 26 percent were settled.[3]

Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance